Search
The Community’s Conversations
To a striking degree, the speeches and welcoming messages to students at the beginning of the fall semester touched on a common theme: the importance of civil discourse and the centrality to the University’s mission of open debate in search of …
Issue: November-December 2019
Catalyzing Bioengineering
With his $131-million gift in support of the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, announced by the University on June 7, Hansjörg Wyss, M.B.A. ’65, has now made three gifts to the eponymous institute, totalling $381 million, which bring …
Issue: September-October 2019
Money-Management Makeover
The value of Harvards endowment increased by $3.3 billion during the fiscal year ended June 30, rising to $29.2 billion. The 12.7 percent growth, from the year-earlier total of $25.9 billion, reflects a 16.7 percent investment return on endowment assets …
Issue: November-December 2006
Alumni Coalition Opposes Harvard Overseer Slate
Following the announcement of a five-person petition slate of candidates in this spring’s voting for members of Harvard’s Board of Overseers , and certification of the petitioners for placement on the ballot , a number of alumni have formed an opposing …
An “Egalitarian Curiosity”
What obstacles impede the free exchange of ideas in college classrooms? And how might they be overcome? “Free Speech on Campus,” a September 20 talk by Vuilleumier professor of philosophy Edward “Ned” Hall that was followed by a response from Conant …
Witness to Violence
After he was hanged, John Hughson’s lifeless body was hung in chains, next to Caesar’s rotting corpse, on the island in the midst of the Little Collect. But the executioner’s work was far from done. Before the sun went down, Albany, Curacoa, Dick, and …
Issue: September-October 2005
Fantastic!
The recent announcement that Lene Vestergaard Hau had successfully changed light to matter, and then back into light, evokes the magic of carrying moonbeams home in a jar. That the general public might harbor doubts about the success of such research is …
Issue: July-August 2007
Off the Shelf
Giuliano da Sangallo and the Ruins of Rome, by Cammy Brothers ’91, Ph.D. ’99 (Princeton, $75). The author, associate professor of architecture at Northeastern, returns to the subject of her dissertation: a Florentine architect (1443-1516) whose meticulous …
Issue: May-June 2022
Football 2017: Harvard 38, Lafayette 10
Nothing like having your superstar return a punt 85 yards to get you back on track. Ignited by Justice Shelton-Mosley ’19, the Harvard football team cruised to a relatively stress-free 38-10 victory over Patriot League foe Lafayette in the seven-hundredth …
Off the Shelf
Harvard’s Secret Court: The Savage 1920 Purge of Campus Homosexuals, by William Wright ( St. Martin’s Press, $25.95 ). A student’s suicide in 1920 led administrators to identify a group of gay or presumed gay undergraduates. A secret court of deans and …
Issue: November-December 2005
What’s Up Comes Down, and Vice Versa
On January 10, state transportation secretary Stephanie Pollack, J.D. ’85, announced that the state will rebuild the Massachusetts Turnpike at ground level where it passes through Allston, rather than maintain it on the existing elevated viaduct, which is …
The “Wild West” of Academic Publishing
Last summer , Harvard University Press (HUP) asked a book designer to create a T-shirt for its softball squad’s intramural season. The front of the shirt bore the expression r > g, signifying that the rate of return on capital (r) is greater than the rate …
Issue: January-February 2015
Toward Cultural Citizenship
One day in the early spring of 2013, Alexander Rehding asked the students in his graduate seminar to join him in experiencing the sound of silence. As he led them through an exercise in deep listening, the students sat quietly for 15 minutes, becoming …
Issue: May-June 2014
100 Years of HSPH
Courtesy of the Harvard School of Public Health Julio Frenk The launch of the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) capital campaign coincides with the school’s centennial celebration. Since opening in September 1913 as the Harvard-MIT School for Health …
Sandeep Robert Datta and Venkatesh Murthy: Why is Smell Such a Mystery to Scientists?
WHY IS SMELL SUCH A MYSTERY TO SCIENTISTS? Neurobiologists Venkatesh Murthy and Sandeep Robert Datta discuss what scientists know about our sense of smell, and what big mysteries remain. Topics include smell loss from COVID-19, experimental …